Recognizing a crisis is not always easy, but you can follow these simple guidelines to identify whether or not you are part of a crisis situation:

1. Are you, students, university employees or university property in immediate physical danger? If so, you are involved in a physical emergency. Contact local emergency dispatchers and university administrators. Refer to Section 2A.

2. Are you, students, university employees or university property involved in a situation that may have legal ramifications? If so, you are involved in a legal emergency. Contact emergency services if necessary, and contact the university legal department right away. Refer to Section 2B.

3. Are you, students, university employees or university property involved in a situation that may potentially reflect positively or negatively on any OSU properties or entities in the press, public, or with academic or athletic associations with which the university is involved? If so, the situation should be treated as a "Communications Emergency", and no action should be taken until confering with the PR department. Refer to Section 2C.

Section 2C: "Communications Emergencies"

As a state funded institution in the modern era, it is important to recognize that there is no such thing as "private communication," and any situation that deviates even slightly from your ordinary, daily tasks may constitute an "emergency." Emergencies may be positive, such as a large university donation, a success story with a student, or a faculty group that recieves praise for their efforts. Emergencies may also be negative, such as a student-athlete involved in illegal or immoral activities, a professor carrying on an improper relationship with a student, or a rash of poor attendance at lectures.

NOTE: All Legal and Physical Emergencies are also Communications Emergencies, but many situations may constitute a Communications Emergency that do not statisfy the other crteria.

In all Communications Emegencies, it is important to bring all relevant information to the attention of your supervisors and the university PR department right away. Remember that their job is to protect the interests of the university. That includes you. It is in your best interest to be as forthcoming as possible at all times. Furthermore, remember that no information is secret in the modern day, and sharing it with the PR department will ensure simple, easy information dispensation that either/both minimizes negative concepts and/or maximizes the positive.

NEVER ATTEMPT TO CONCEAL INFORMATION THAT MAYCONSTITUTE A COMMUNICATIONS EMERGENCY. Work closely with the PR department and make sure they are the first to know. After the Communications Emergency has been revealed to the larger interested public, it will be important to follow the plan set forth by the office of Public Relations at all times.

And this got me thinking... remember that dude who "found" those chat room convos with RR, his coaching staff, and random players? I would love it if someone "found" a convo between Tressel, Gee, and Smith right now.

I feel like we need a Tosh.0 email breakdown because this is just too much stupid. I'm enjoying every minute of this, but how can you, as a prominent employee of a public institution subject to FOIA (or whatever they call it in Ohio) requests, not:

A.) Have a private email/phone/etc channel in which to communicate off the record?

and

B.) Not expect these emails on your university account to come out

and

C.) Not expect the media to run with a coverup story!?!?

Without the written evidence, this whole investigation may not have started, and for that, we thank you Jim Tressel.

That is what I find most astonishing about the whole Tressel escapade. Not that he cheated. Not that he lied. I always believed the senator/vest thing was a load of crap. Not that he failed to accept responsibility at the press conference--not with his obvious arrogance and self-righteousnessness. What always blew me away is that he was so damn stupid that he thought hitting "delete" on his computer meant no one would ever know about the emails so he could cover up his role in case anything ever came out about Tatgate. Lord, what a moron.

That hitting "delete" does not in fact permanently erase all record of the email may be obvious to you, and me, and most of the readers of this board... but I suspect it is not obvious to the (possibly vast) majority of people who use email.

Likewise, the idea that in the digital age, the truth will out, and nothing can be covered up for long, is a paradigm shift in thinking that I suspect a large number of institutions have not yet really digested.

(Not that I'm excusing Tressel, or TSIO's compliance in general. Whether or not it would become public knowledge does not impact whether or not it was the correct moral decision.)

Most people should know that anything on a computer not just e-mail cannot be really deleted with all of the high profile cases that have been in the news. I think the former Mayor of Detroit should have educated the slow learners. However, lets think about how many males, especially high profile males, think they can get away with affairs even though the numbers caught have been staggering. I think it has to do more with arrogance, "I am better than anyone else so it won't happened to me," than ignorance. It might be a paradigm shift for institutions, but corporations have been concerned about e-mails and the possible misinterpretation of e-mails for at least 10 years.

I wasn't thinking of one former buckeye (who is now a high profile sports announcer) when I started this comment, but ironically he apparently suffered from some of the same issues. Maybe there is a significant lack of moral compasses in the land of the worthless nuts.

Tressell has been given the message that what he does- works- and he has climbed the ladder and made major achievements. However, the chickens always come home to roost at one point or another. Over time, Tressell was given more and more and more power, and power tends to corrupt. Thing is, he appears to have been corrupt for a significant period of time. I'm sick of hearing about all the good, because it is not the good that puts OSU in the current state of clusterfuck. It is the bad, and the bad is shared from the top to the bottom. I'm pretty liberal, but if Gee's wife is smoking the weed in office, on campus, as is reported, then he obviously is not adverse to breaking the rules, or using a sliding scale...

as though this is an anxillary detail but any word on why the OSU legal department was "stumbling" around in a way which they just so happened upon Tressels emails? Seems like an obvious hole in the story which was never fully addressed unless I totally missed something.

Years and years ago (so long it almost seems like a previous life) I was employed by a small company with an office of about 25 people. There were at least two simultaneous affairs going on among the staff, but they were only suspected and not proven. Both of the women were admin staff, both of the guys were managers.

As it happened, I stumbled upon a bug in the email system that let a user read anyone else's emails. All you needed was an account on the system. Immediately, I sent an email around the office to let everyone know that their communications weren't secure. The panic that ensued was amazing and hilariously funny. Within minutes of me sending the broadcast email there were closed door discussions between the parties to the extramarital affairs. Their reactions gave them away.